connecting the dots now and again

Control What You Can Control

So I’m in the beginning stages of crossing something off the bucket list that I’ve had on it for a while. I’m gonna wait a little bit for the big reveal, but it’s led me to some really good conversations the last couple of days with some old friends.

The main theme of these conversations revolve around the fact that as elite athletes, or in being elite at anything, we are sold this bill of goods as kids that the ones that “make it” are the best people per say and how devastating it is when you buy into this line of thinking when you learn that quite simply, this isn’t the case. I discovered this long before Lance Armstrong and Tiger Woods pronounced this, through their actions to the world and it was something that left me disillusioned for a very long time. For me, I’ve played with a lot of people that the sporting world would hold up as heroes, yet those that truly fit my description of the word, those filled with integrity, courage and work-ethic are the ones now leading quiet lives, that no one in an era of facebook fans and twitter followers will have ever heard of.

That being said, maturing as a person and grasping a better understanding of the world, I’ve realized that there is so much that we can’t control and we don’t control. For me personally, soccer started leaving a bitter taste in my mouth, when I started focusing on the negatives, whether it be negative people in charge or unprofessional situations, instead of what drove me there in the first place; the sheer love of the game. Every thought I had of the people or things that made me unhappy, were moments and thoughts that could have been directed towards the positive and this negativity slowly started to suck the love of the game out of me. In time, I’ve learned that every moment in our lives represents a choice of what it is we decide to focus on.

Ultimately it all goes back to one of the most valuable ideas that lead to the most happy and productive of lives…control what you can control and let the rest go and in living that idea, you will always walk away feeling that you got the result you deserved.